HC judges strength increased

Bilaspur, Nov 21 (UNI) The Centre has approved the Supreme Court proposal to increase the strength of Chhattisgarh High Court judges to 18 against the present eight.

A communication in this regard received from the Law Ministry was read out during hearing by Acting Chief Justice Jagdish Bhalla, court sources said today.

Chhattisgarh High Court came into existence along with formation of a separate state on November 1, 2000. Initially six judges had been provided and a total of 22,000 pending cases had been transferred to the new high court from Madhya Pradesh High Court. Subsequently, strength of judges was raised to eight keeping in view the number of pending cases.

Former Chief Justice A S Venkatachalamurthy had sent a proposal to the Supreme Court to raise the judges' strength to 18.

At present, only six judges are posted at the High Court, where the number of pending cases has crossed one lakh.